Loud and clear

On Monday ,the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Olivier de Schutter, called for the world´s food systems to be radically and democratically redesigned to ensure the human right to adequate food and to eliminate hunger.

“The eradication of hunger and malnutrition is an achievable goal. However, it will not be enough to refine the logic of our food systems – it must instead be reversed,” said De Schutter according to a press release published on the website of the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food. De Schutter´s statements came during the presentation of his final report after a six-year term as Special Rapporteur.

The expert warned that the current food systems are efficient only from the point of view of maximizing agribusiness profits. Objectives such as supplying diverse, culturally-acceptable foods to communities, supporting smallholders, sustaining soil and water resources, and raising food security within particularly vulnerable areas, must not be crowded out by the one-dimensional quest to produce more food, added De Schutter.

During his term as UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, De Schutter questioned the agribusiness model for food production and defended the role of family farmers around the world.

To analyze De Schutter´s comments, Real World Radio interviewed Friends of the Earth International´s Food Sovereignty Program Coordinator, Martin Drago. In a press release issued yesterday by FoEI, Drago said: “This report is the only recipe for the eradication of hunger. Its recommendations are bold and simple: our current food systems must be reversed, not just reformed.”

Drago believes all governments should adopt national policies in line with De Schutter´s recommendations. Governments “must note the report’s emphasis on the need to support agroecology at the national and international levels”, said Drago.

The activist highlighted the invaluable contribution of the UN Special Rapporteur towards promoting food sovereignty as the right of the people to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced in a sustainable way.

“The report’s recommendations clearly state that Food Sovereignty is needed to eradicate hunger as well as to democratise our food systems. The report also recognises Food Sovereignty as an essential condition to be fulfilled in order to fully realize the right to food,” concluded Drago according to FoEI´s press release.